Moebius

Young Joo-seo and Lee Eun-woo

Kim Ki-duk left behind a startling and troubling legacy of over thirty films before his death from COVID-19 in 2020. A good number of his films contain enough exploitive sex scenes and perverse violence to alienate the more progressively humanist minded of the Western critical establishment. Jonathan Rosenbaum's response to Kim's Samaritan Girl is a good example. Furthermore, accusations of sexual assault and cruelty on the set of 2013's Moebius and other films dogged the director until his death. If that is not enough of an ick factor to drive away viewers from seeing his films, then the brief synopsis usually provided of Moebius can be depended on to clear those remaining in the screening room: in response to her husband's infidelity, a mother castrates her teenage son. Needless to say, viewers predisposed to seeing Moebius tend to favor I Dismember Mama over I Remember Mama. 

That synopsis is actually incorrect. The mother in the film cuts off her son's member rather than his testicles. This occurs during the first reel of the film and, well, things get even stranger after that. Moebius is also a largely a silent film. There are sounds, snatches of dialogue, and lots of moans, but no dialogue. I felt that this worked in the film's favor: the action on screen is so crazed that any dialogue would be superfluous. Then there is the matter of the film's structure which mimics that of the title: an infinite loop. That this loop is an endless cycle of pain and recrimination belies Kim's misanthropic worldview. In Moebius, pain and pleasure, intertwined, are handed back and forth between partners as if they are rods of retribution. There is little variance in the action of the film because its theme is that of the compulsive repetition of human behavior. 

Moebius is filmed in an unfussy and casual style with none of the beautiful photography or lush production design of Kim's humanist masterpiece, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring. I would recommend that film or 3-Iron for an introduction to Kim's work. However, Moebius, despite or because of its hysterical excess, sticks in my mind. The performers are all exemplary, especially Lee Eun-woo's mistress. Ultimately, the film is a pitch black comedy, but its bleak view of human interaction is bound to alienate all but the most hardy souls. They can find this singular film streaming on Tubi.